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Botnst · #1 10-29-2006, 10:10 AM

Climate change 'hitting Africa'
BBC

Climate change is already affecting people across Africa and will wipe out efforts to tackle poverty there unless urgent action is taken, a report says. Droughts are getting worse and climate uncertainty is growing, the research from a coalition of UK aid agencies and environmental groups says.

Climate change is an "unprecedented" threat to food security, it says. It calls for a "climate-proof" model of development and massive emissions cuts to avoid "possibly cataclysmic change". The report, Up In Smoke 2, updates previous research from the organisations - Oxfam, the New Economics Foundation and the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, an umbrella group of aid and green groups. It says that although climates across Africa have always been erratic, scientific research and the experience of the contributing groups "indicates new and dangerous extremes".

Arid or semi-arid areas in northern, western, eastern and parts of southern Africa are becoming drier, while equatorial Africa and other parts of southern Africa are getting wetter, the report says. The continent is, on average, 0.5C warmer than it was 100 years ago, but temperatures have risen much higher in some areas - such as a part of Kenya which has become 3.5C hotter in the past 20 years, the agencies report.

Andrew Simms, from the New Economics Foundation, said: "Global warming is set to make many of the problems which Africa already deals with, much, much worse," he said.

"In the last year alone, 25 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa have faced food crisis.

"Global warming means that that many dry areas are going to get drier and wet areas are going to get wetter. They are going to be caught between the devil of drought and the deep blue seas of floods."

He added that the "great tragedy" was that Africa had played virtually no role in global warming, a problem he said was caused by economic activity of the rich, industrial countries.

Mr Simms said unless climate change was tackled all the "best efforts" to help Africa could come to nothing.

One of the biggest threats is growing climate unpredictability, which makes subsistence farming difficult, the report says.

The average number of food emergencies in Africa per year almost tripled since the mid 1980s, it points out.

But it says that better planning to reduce the risk from disasters, together with developing agricultural practices that can withstand changing climates, have been shown to work and could help mitigate the impact if used be more widely.

'Overwhelming'

Up in Smoke 2 also laments the failure of industrialised governments to help developing countries adapt to climate change. Between $10bn (£5.2bn) and $40bn is needed annually, the report says, but industrialised countries have given only $43m - a tenth of the amount they have pledged - while rich country fossil fuel subsidies total $73bn a year. The agencies say that greenhouse emissions cuts of 60% - 90% will ultimately be needed - way beyond the targets set in the Kyoto agreement.

"Climate change is overwhelming the situation in Africa... unless we take genuine steps now to reduce our emissions, people in the developed world will be condemning millions to hunger, starvation and death," said Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth.

The report comes two weeks before a key summit on climate change in Nairobi, where delegates will look at the progress made on the Kyoto agreement that requires industrial nations to cut their emissions by an average of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012.

Delegates will also consider what system should be adopted when the current period ends.

Hatterasguy · #2 10-29-2006, 04:50 PM

What else is new? Certian areas of that continant just can't seem to get it together.

Kuan · #3 10-29-2006, 05:40 PM

I think we've been working on a solve over the last 40 years. It goes something like this:

1) Remove jungle
2) No more problem

cmac2012 · #4 10-29-2006, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

What else is new? Certian areas of that continant just can't seem to get it together.

A lot of truth to that but these new developments go beyond that. The overall ability of the planet to produce food/sustain life is slipping. We humans are escaping some of the negative effects of the damage we've done/are doing to the planet because of our ability to use tech to further dig into the natural capital base to extract sustenance.

Could just exacerbate the problem in the long run.

Like Dylan said, "and it's a hard rainnnnnnn, gonna fall."

cmac2012 · #5 10-29-2006, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuan

I think we've been working on a solve over the last 40 years. It goes something like this:

1) Remove jungle
2) No more problem

I understand that part of the vanishing snows/glaciers phenomenon on Kilimanjaro is likely due to deforestation in the vicinity, cutting down on precip on the mountain.

Could be that when humans moved from hunter/gatherer mode to agriculture was the beginning of a long, slow slide to disaster.

450slcguy · #6 10-29-2006, 07:10 PM

Frankly, I don't give a damn anymore. Nothing is going to be done to stop global warming so I just accept the fact it'is happening and will continue to grow. Just one more woe on the list of future ecological and humanitarian disaters too come. Every man for himself, it's been that way since the beginning of time and will be that way at the end of time. Might sound cynical but it's an honest assesment of the situation.

Hatterasguy · #7 10-29-2006, 08:10 PM

I'm not 100% convenced that global warming is the result of man. Also I am far from convenced that the end is anywhere near.

I think we have a greater chance of killing eachother through our own stupidity and war, then any environmental cause.

Africa is Africa. Crops are always failing, there is always a civil war, deserts are always expanding, and people are always starving.

Nothing has changed in the past 100 years.

t walgamuth · #8 10-29-2006, 08:12 PM

oh the earth will survive.

man's survival however is in question.

tom w

450slcguy · #9 10-29-2006, 08:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

I'm not 100% convenced that global warming is the result of man. Also I am far from convenced that the end is anywhere near.

I think we have a greater chance of killing eachother through our own stupidity and war, then any environmental cause.

Africa is Africa. Crops are always failing, there is always a civil war, deserts are always expanding, and people are always starving.

Nothing has changed in the past 100 years.

All good points and I agree. Although I will miss the coral reefs, spectacular eco systems. Supposedly most will be gone in less than 25 years or so.

t walgamuth · #10 10-29-2006, 10:49 PM

they are dying very very fast.

big article in smithsonian recently about coral reefs.

tom w

BobK · #11 10-30-2006, 07:56 AM

Global thawing is more like it. We have been slowly coming out of this mini ice age that started 700-800 years ago. Anybody remember back then when Greenland was actually green?

t walgamuth · #12 10-30-2006, 08:40 AM

i thought it never was, but was a cartography error.

tom w

BobK · #13 10-30-2006, 11:48 AM

No, about 700-800 years ago, it suddenly (like over a generation) got a lot colder. Sorta like you had moved 500 miles to the north.

Botnst · #14 01-05-2007, 11:08 PM

Europe to suffer as the world warms up
By Andrew Bounds in Brussels
Published: January 5 2007 22:22 | Last updated: January 5 2007 22:22

Chilly northern Europe could reap big benefits from global warming, while the Mediterranean faces crippling shortages of both water and tourists by the middle of the century, according to the first comprehensive study of its effects on the continent.

Fewer in the north would die of cold, crops there would boom and the North Sea coast could become the new Riviera, an analysis to be approved by the European Commission next week shows. But the annual migration of rich northern Europeans to the south could stop – with dramatic consequences for the economies of Spain, Greece and Italy.

A sixth of the world’s tourists – 100m people annually – head south within Europe for their holidays, spreading €100bn ($130bn) of largesse with them. “The more tourists stay home or go to other destinations, the larger the distributional impact in Europe will be,” says the paper, a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times.

While fewer people will perish of cold in the north, tens of thousands more will die of heat in the south. As many as 87,000 extra deaths a year would occur annually by 2071, assuming a three degree centigrade temperature rise. If efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions limit the rise to 2.2 degrees, additional mortalities would be 36,000 a year.

These numbers are dwarfed by predicted deaths and economic chaos in the developing world.

The Commission’s environment directorate compiled the report with data from Brussels’ satellite monitoring service and a review of the latest evidence.

t walgamuth · #15 01-05-2007, 11:57 PM

so, mr b. did you see al gore's movie?

in the conclusions he suggested we can make a difference.

what do you think?

tom w